New Course Update - How Equipment Sizing Works in a Project

Hi

I hope you are enjoying the Process Design Masterclass. If you have any questions, feel free to ask at any time.

In a previous article, I have talked about the importance of process simulation and how a process engineer needs to optimize it. This is because this is the source of the process data that are needed to carry out the sizing of different equipment and piping.

How Improper Equipment Sizing can Affect the whole Process

However, we need to talk more about equipment sizing activities. A process engineer is responsible for the sizing of different equipment such as towers, exchangers, separators, and pressure safety valves. Let's consider these scenarios:

1. A tower tray design that was sized only based on normal operation. It didn't take into account the turndown operation. This resulted in weeping on trays, disturbed tower operation, and finally led to an off-spec product.
2. A heat exchanger was supposed to heat a liquid to a temperature of 120 C in order to vaporize light ends and separate them in the downstream separator. Unfortunately, the exchanger wasn't sized well. This yielded to an outlet temperature of 110 C, which means that the outlet liquid contained light ends, leading to an off-spec product.
3. A separator was sized based on a vapor flow of 50 MMSCFD. The real case was that the separator was supposed to accommodate 80 MMSCFD. Due to the small vessel diameter and high gas velocity in the vessel, separation was poor. This led to a huge liquid carryover in the outlet vapor that caused severe issues to the downstream compressor.
4. A pressure safety valve that was sized to handle control valve failure scenario. However, it didn't consider the liquid fire case. This yielded a small PSV orifice area that can't relieve excess pressure in the vessel leaving the vessel unprotected.

These examples demonstrate the importance of a process engineer properly carrying out different equipment sizing activities. He should understand how to optimize sizing from a simulation point of view by providing the optimized flow rates, pressure, and temperature, and operating scenarios. In addition, he should be aware of the different design aspects of the sizing of each equipment and how he can control them to provide the optimized sizing based on the given process data.

To help you master these critical skills, I'm excited to announce several new lectures added to my "Process Engineering Masterclass" course, focusing on the essential aspects of equipment sizing.

You can check out the updates below:

1. Tower Design example
2. Exchanger Thermal Design Example
3. Separator Design Example
4. PSV Sizing Example

Finally, if you have any questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to support you in your journey to becoming a top-notch process engineer.

Regards

Mohamad